This weekend we had prepared to go up state to go to a baseball game with our middle and youngest daughters, my mother in-law, Bob’s nephews, and visit my folks on the way home for a little while. On the way up my phone starts ringing (this almost never happens). I check the number, and it’s my parents’ number. So I answer it. It’s my dad. This is not going to be good news. Dad hates phones in general, and for him to have gone to the trouble to look up my cell phone number meant this was serious business. My mom had fallen that afternoon. She hit a corner of a cardboard box on the way down, an ..read more

So my back has started to act up over the past month–up to where I can barely move my upper body without bringing on instant pain from the middle of my neck down my right shoulder and shoulder blade, then across my mid-back from right to left. I keep trying to relax my muscles and it’s just not happening. My back used to hurt like this when I was younger when I had to lean in to read the piano music I enjoyed. I had to get my face without a foot to six inches away from the sheet music, absolutely ruining my posture and causing this exact pain. I gave up piano a long time ago. Now I’m generally ..read more

I admit it. I’m getting old, and I need new systems to keep up with my appointments, etc. I used to just keep it all in my head. Several years ago I started writing items down on a calendar. Then I started taking that calendar and posting on the refrigerator. But all last week my brain kept tricking me that I had cancelled and rescheduled an appointment that I had on the calendar on April 12 and rescheduled it to today. But I couldn’t remember what time it was. So this morning I called to check. Reader, I had not cancelled that appointment and rescheduled it. I had just blown through it and mi ..read more

Maybe. The rage is gone. The itching is totally gone. And the random crying is gone. I had a good day yesterday and hope to be able to get going at work tomorrow bright and early. Lots to do still and that’s good. Because left to my own devices I’d just dissolve into a puddle of tears and shame for not pulling my weight and not being able to cope. So we will see how long this stability lasts ..read more

Today was kind of a white-knuckle day. I got some things done at work, but it was at a very halting and stop-and-go pace. I sat through a meeting and managed to pay attention to what was being said. So that was good. I felt such a weight roll off my back when I was able to sign out, though. The itching is gone. The rage is just about all gone. And last night I had a lot of tossing-and-turning time before I finally fell asleep. And the extra movements are just about gone. So I am finally feeling better. I hope it’s a long, long time before I get that close to an episode again. I did not enjoy i ..read more

Yes. That’s what I’m doing. They finally added in an antipsychotic today to get the rage to recede. I hope this is what works. I am trying to relax today ecause I can tell my temper is still high. Every time I make a typo, I want to break the keyboard. It’s raining today. We had a tornado go through Jackson last night. Suffering everywhere. And all I can hear in my head is myself screaming. No words. I took the anti-psychotic when I got home and will take the next one when I eat lunch. I hope it calms me down finally. I don’t know what else I can do. I feel like if I call anyone and start talk ..read more

So today while Bob was home at lunch, we set criteria for me to try to go to a crisis care unit in my community since the psych unit I used to go to is closed: if I wanted to just quit my job for no reason, if I wanted to run away or disappear, if I wanted to hurt myself, or someone else. I’ve blown right through the first two. I read up on the website for the crisis center and I think I’d have to be past the third to get in. I’m calling my psychiatrist to see what he thinks. He wants to see me first thing in the morning. We will see what happens ..read more

I’ve been in the ER for about four hours. Ever since Tuesday, I’ve been increasingly itchy, having aimless movements, and breaking into random crying spells rather than rage. So I came to the ER There finally sending me home with a generalized itch medicine and I’ll call Dr Bishop tomorrow to see what he says about it. What a waste of time ..read more

f’m not sure what I experienced when I went to church today. The service was very, very crowded, and when everyone stood up to start the praise & worship, I just lost it. I couldn’t breathe. I went downstairs in the open lobby and sat there crying for a good twenty minutes. I hated not being in the service, but I hated the feelings of danger and anxiety more. The missions pastor saw me sitting there and crying and came up to me and asked if I needed anything. My mouth had gone dry by this point, so I asked for some water. He brought me a cold water bottle, and that helped with the dry mout ..read more

This feeling of rage that’s unattached to anything going on in my life can go away anytime it wants to. On World Bipolar Day I would love to say everything is golden. It really has been lately in many ways. But in so many other ways it’s just not. Being bipolar for me means taking lithium, which causes a thirst that no amount of water can seem to put down. Being bipolar for me means that good emotions are not to be trusted. Is it real? Is it good and true? Or is it a start of the insidious mania that flips me over into paranoia, self-harm, or rage that I can’t control? Being bipolar for me is ..read more